


Tired

by WriteDreamLie



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Drug Use, Ed just has a lot of things to say, Ed talks a lot when the painkillers kick in, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Those tags make this look like some hardass story but this is NOT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 08:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16678171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteDreamLie/pseuds/WriteDreamLie
Summary: “I’m so tired of this,” he said, slurring slightly. The day was catching up with him. The drugs wouldn’t be helping either.Edward removed his glasses, setting them neatly on the table. Then, without warning, he fell backwards onto the bed, dragging Oswald down with him.Post-pier recovery.





	Tired

They stood on the edge of the pier, looking out at the calm water, lit beautifully by the sun on its way to setting.

“I have a strong desire,” said Ed, “to never see this pier again.”

“Agreed,” said Oswald with a nod.

It had been a long day, made somehow longer by the fact that it had ended here. Oswald was ready to go home and sleep. Perhaps he would be ready to face people again in a few weeks.

“…back to Cherry’s?”

“Hmm?”

Ed sounded as tired as Oswald felt. “I said, are you coming back to Cherry’s? I’ve got a room on the upper floor where we can wait for Lee to come back.”

“If she comes back.”

“She’ll come back,” said Ed confidently. “Sofia took a lot from her. She won’t let that go unpunished.”

“Good.” Oswald smiled thinking of Sofia Falcone dead in a ditch somewhere. “Good.”

* * *

 

They ended up dragging each other up the stairs of Cherry’s. They had two good legs between the two of them and needed every ounce of strength to keep each other from falling back down the stairs.

Once they’d reached Edward’s room—small and sparsely furnished, Oswald noticed—Ed collapsed onto the bed. Even dead-tired, Oswald had to admit that Ed had had the worse day. Being frozen for a few hours was hardly anything to having one’s jaw drilled, leg stabbed, and head nearly blown off by mind-numbingly stupid assassins.

Oswald would never admit that he’d waited at the pier for several minutes while the goons bickered. He’d been waiting for the rest of Ed’s master plan. For The Riddler to break through and save him. But in the end, it had all come too close for comfort. Oswald was not willing to lose Ed again, not like this.

“Does Lee keep medical supplies around here?” he asked, glancing at the concerning number of orange pill bottles lined up on Edward’s side table.

“She’s got a mini-clinic a few doors down,” Ed gasped, pulling himself into a sitting position. He leaned on his bad leg tenderly; the large bloodstain didn’t seem to be growing any at least.

“Stay here. I’ll find you some pills.” Oswald shuffled back out into the hallway. “And take off your pants.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ed practically squeaked.

Os muffled a laugh as he searched for the clinic door. “Your leg, asshole. I’m going to find you some bandages.”

“Oh.”

Had Oswald been a little less tired, he may have bothered to imagine that Ed sounded disappointed. As it was, it was all he could do to stay on his feet long enough to hear from Lee. He didn’t hold Ed’s confidence that she’d have taken care of Sofia, but he also didn’t believe she’d go down herself without a fight. One way or another, he’d hear back, either from her or about her demise.

He shuffled back in to the room several minutes later, arms laden with bandages, cleaning solution, towels, and new pill bottles.

Ed had not only removed his pants, but most of his bloodstained suit, and was sitting on the bed in boxers and an undershirt, prodding curiously at the wound on his leg.

“Stop poking at it,” Oswald muttered, looking through the bundle in his arms.

Ed looked up at him wearily but stopped poking at the wound.

“Take this,” he said, setting one of the bottles down on the table. “It’ll knock you out in a few minutes, time enough to get your leg cleaned and wrapped.”

“Do you have anything less potent?”

Oswald raised an eyebrow. “You want something that _won’t_ take the pain away?”

“I want something that won’t knock me out right away,” Ed amended. “I need to talk to you while we’ve got time.”

“We’ve got all the time in the world, Ed.”

Tired though he was, Edward was able to emote his total disbelief in that statement without saying a word. Oswald shrugged and picked up another bottle.

“This one then. Two of them.”

Ed nodded and took the bottle. He swallowed the pills dry, then returned the bottle to the table among the many others.

“Care to tell me why you’re sleeping next to a drug store’s worth of drugs?”

“I’ve been… splitting again.”

Oswald paused pouring the cleaning solution on one of the towels.

“You mean like you’d been doing last year? Right before the election?”

“Yes.”

Oswald motioned for him to move to the edge of the bed. He obliged, and Os began wiping away the blood on Ed’s leg.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t want to admit weakness. Didn’t want to see it as a problem. But it became one anyway.”

Oswald nodded. He and Ed had talked through his split personality problem back when they were working on Oswald’s campaign. For the most part, Ed had seemed stable during his time with Oswald, which both men attributed to having something to keep himself busy with. Apparently, life at Cherry’s wasn’t quite as engaging.

“Did you do anything rash?”

“I tried to kill myself.”

“You what?!”

Ed winced as Oswald’s hand came down on his bad leg. Oswald realized his mistake and took a step back, still gripping the bloody towel in one fist.

“Why the hell wouldn’t you have talked to me? Or Lee at least? For fuck’s sake Edward, why would you let things get that bad?”

Ed sighed. “I did it to myself.” He looked over the bottles of pills, picking one out from among the swarm. “When you were… When I _thought_ I’d killed you, I used these to see you. To hallucinate you. I couldn’t even be honest with you then, when I knew you weren’t real. And then I dumped the pills at that fucking pier, just to end up stealing more from Lee the first chance I got.”

Oswald sat down on the floor in front of Ed, his mind reeling. Edward. Suicidal. Taking hallucinogenic drugs. Fighting with himself. Alone.

“Ed…”

“You betrayed me.”

Oswald threw the towel away from himself and reached to unroll the bandages. “What?”

Edward sounded more lucid with every word, his voice rising to shatter the quiet that had filled the room before.

“You betrayed me. I trusted you, cared for you, I fucking loved you—”

“You what now—”

“And you took the one thing that made me happier than anything else and expected me to be _fucking happy about it!”_

“Are you still talking about Isabella? Really?”

“Yes, really!” Ed made to stand, but his leg insisted that he not, and he ended up falling back onto the bed, fists clenched on either side of himself. “After everything, that still stings the most. You ask why I couldn’t come to you, why I didn’t tell you about these problems, but you were the one who broke any semblance of trust I had in you in the first place!”

Oswald had the good grace to look ashamed. He could only say that he felt regretful to an extent; that woman had been bad for Ed, and Ed had to have seen it by now. But now was not the time to try and point it out.

So instead, he settled on, “You’re right. That was my fault.”

“You’re damn right I’m right,” Ed said, leaning forward and snatching the bandages out of Oswald’s hand.

Oswald sat on the floor and watched Ed bandage himself. He wanted to offer a hand but felt that would have been just as bad of an idea as talking more about Isabella. He pulled his knees up to his chest, arranging his bad leg at an angle to keep his balance. He felt small. He wanted to be small, smaller, small enough to fall through the crack in the floor and disappear.

Ed threw the unused bandages down and picked up another towel to begin cleaning the blood off his face.

“Do… you want me to get you a mirror?” Oswald offered softly.

“Absolutely not.”

Oh. _Oh._ The splitting. Right.

Os stretched out his legs and stood. “Here, let me help then.”

Ed refused to look at him, but he did hand over the towel. Oswald began the careful process of scrubbing the blood from Ed’s face, avoiding the most bruised areas, moving more softly when Ed winced.

When his face was clean, Oswald got him a glass of water from the tiny bathroom attached to the room. Ed took half a mouthful, swished it around for several seconds, then spit pink and red back into the cup.

“You’ll want to get that looked at,” Oswald said, taking the glass back to the bathroom.

When he came back, Ed seemed to have gone comatose. He was leaning forward, all his weight on his good leg, staring at the door to the room like it held all the answers to life. A small line of blood had begun to drip down his cheek again.

Oswald picked the towel back up and took Ed’s chin in one hand, forcing him to look up so he could wipe the blood away. Ed’s eyes seemed to refocus, and they landed on Oswald’s.

The intensity of the stare was too much, and Oswald moved away, back to his small pile of supplies. He’d grabbed a few pills for himself, though he’d have to wait until Lee got back—or didn’t—before he could take them. He wanted to be at home, wanted to scrub every particle of Sofia Falcone from his house. Maybe then he could finally get some sleep.

He leaned back against the door. Ed was still staring blankly in his direction.

The silent contemplation continued. Os wasn’t sure if he was looking at him, or at the door. Was he trying to figure out how to get Oswald to leave? As much as he wanted to, that wouldn’t happen until he knew Sofia’s fate.

But, truth be told, that wasn’t the only reason he didn’t want to go.

Os put his arms around himself and looked away, anywhere but Ed, as he asked, “Do… do you still love me?”

He saw Ed shift on the bed; his arms flung out to his sides. “Is that not obvious by now?”

Os shivered. “I didn’t want to assume.”

Silence. Too much, too heavy. Ed leaned over and picked up the first bottle of pills Oswald had tried to hand him. Dumped one large white pill out into his palm. Looked at the bottle, thought about it, put the bottle back on the table, swallowing the lone pill dry.

“Would you come here?”

Os looked up to see Ed patting the bed softly. He pushed himself off the door and sat down carefully, leaving plenty of space between himself and Ed.

“I want to forgive you,” Ed said, his tongue moving slowly over swollen gums.

“I want you to forgive me.”

Another pause, just long enough for Os to worry that he’d said the wrong thing. Then,

“Okay,” Ed said finally.

“Okay?”

“Okay. I forgive you. It’s done.”

“Oh, um. Thanks?”

Ed didn’t respond. Instead, he took Oswald’s hand in his own. 

“I’m so tired of this,” he said, slurring slightly. The day was catching up with him. The drugs wouldn’t be helping either.

Edward removed his glasses, setting them neatly on the table. Then, without warning, he fell backwards onto the bed, dragging Oswald down with him.

“Don’t leave me alone.” It was a request, an order, a plea all at once.

“Anything you say, Ed.”

Ed’s eyes were drooping closed. Os could tell he was fighting the sleep that was trying desperately to take him. He reached out to brush a few strands of hair out of Ed’s face and ended up running his hands through Ed’s hair softly, slowly. His eyes closed and stayed that way.

But before he could drop fully into sleep, Edward reached up with his free hand and took Oswald’s wrist gingerly, pulling his hand out of his hair and down towards his face. He pressed one warm, lingering kiss to Oswald’s palm before the strength leeched out of him entirely, and he dropped both of their hands to the bed with a contented sigh.

Oswald, trapped in more ways than one, decided that sleep sounded like a wonderful idea.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this like a million years ago, but have you seen those promo pictures?? Oh my god our boys are getting married, so consider this a celebratory thing. Imagine this shit happened behind the scenes somewhere. And then they got strung up by Batman. Fucking romantic, that's what it is.


End file.
